


An Echo, a Stain

by nunslinger



Category: Dragon Age
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M, Mental Health Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-21
Updated: 2012-03-21
Packaged: 2017-11-02 08:14:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 894
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/366894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nunslinger/pseuds/nunslinger
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Isabela observes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	An Echo, a Stain

**Author's Note:**

> I was a little surprised that no one has written this concept yet so I figured I'd take a whack at it.
> 
> Beta'd by my lovely gf, any mistakes left she probably tried really hard to make me change.
> 
> Thanks to Bjork for the title.

Isabela was woken up at 11:36 which was really just way too early. Based on the tinny chirping of the Adventure Time theme song, it sounded like Hawke was calling. Glaring at the phone didn’t seem to be stopping it, and the phone didn’t really deserve either, so that left the option of answering.

“Hawke, what is it?”  
“Isabela, I’m hurt. That is no way to greet your favorite person in all of Thedas.”  
“Please. You’re probably trying to drag me somewhere I’ll need to put pants on to get into, or somewhere dreadful, like the Bone Pit. It‘s far too early for me to be awake, much less to have pants on.”  
“I don’t know why you hate the Bone Pit so much.”  
“The name is misleading. The Bone Pit should be the name of a brothel or strip club. Or my vagina.”  
“It’s too early for pants, but not too early to talk about your genitals?”  
“Darling, it’s never too early to talk about my genitals.”  
“So true. I actually called for a favor though.”  
“Hawke. You never need to call. It’s not like I move around very much.”  
“Well…that’s true. This just seemed like the sort of thing I should check ahead about for once.”  
“It’s never that sort of thing. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have some sleeping to get back to.”

~

“Why me?”  
“Varric’s busy, and Anders hates the rest of my friends.”  
“He hates Aveline?”  
“Well. He thinks she’s trying to kill him. Paranoia being one of the side effects.”

~

She really doesn’t want to see him like this. She’s really not comfortable with emotions, especially other people’s. She knows Hawke isn’t either, he’s even more likely than she is to deflect with a joke. But he feels some sort of obligation to come here, so she’ll come too. Varric really would be the better option here, and she knows he’s come before. She hasn’t asked him for details, but she believes he came with the very first time.

There’s an uncomfortable amount of regulation. Two visitors at a time, visiting hours from 6 to 8, you have to buzz in, take an elevator, and then sign in at the desk. The elevator only has the two buttons: hard to get lost.

Anders seems tired. He usually does now. She misses the him that jokes and smiles, but that’s unfair. Being more than one person is probably exhausting.

~

It had started ages ago. Not before she met him, it was after that. Sometime after that amazing party (with the above-expectations one night stand), but before either of them met Hawke, Anders had started developing symptoms. He’d said he’d gone to a doctor about it back in Ferelden, and while he wasn’t a psychiatrist, he was a physician, and did own a DSM, so it wasn’t going to be anything he couldn’t handle. Isabela wasn’t sure she believed it, but she was a college drop-out who hadn’t been to therapy that wasn’t court mandated, and anyway, it wasn’t her business.

Still she worried about Hawke when Anders talked sometimes. Maybe drowning everyone in blood was romantic, but to her it just sounded a lot like her husband had, and that was certainly not an experience she could recommend to anyone.

~

Anders ended up trying to kill some girl before he committed himself. 

~

“The new girl screamed all night. Apparently her parents tricked her into coming here. And hospital pillows are the worst thing in the world.”  
“Worse than slavery?” Hawke’s tactic for any situation is humor, an impulse Isabela shares and understands, but a trait that can actually upset people quite a bit.  
“Couldn’t possibly be worse than the Bone Pit.” She almost feels obligated to add.  
“My point was,” Anders huffs, “that I was hoping you could bring my pillow next time you visit.”  
“I can do that. Isabela will probably be too busy swaggering around the Rose to remember.” Hawke didn’t seem affected by her glare here, and continued on blithely ignoring her. 

~

Isabela wasn’t there for their first meeting, but Varric assured her that Hawke was suitably charming, bringing up Anders’ condition first thing.  
“So, wait. That wasn’t you pretending to be someone else, was it?”  
“I… This is hard to explain.”  
That was probably why Anders had just taken it upon himself to explain when he first met anyone new after that.  
“So will I need to check if it’s still you? Hello? Is Anders there?”  
“Wow, that’s one of the most offensive things I’ve ever heard. You can stop yelling. It’s always me.”  
But the thing was— it wasn’t.

~

“All well besides the quality of your pillows?”  
“They keep trying to make me take these stupid pills that completely destroy all my emotions. I keep telling them, I’m not here for my depression. My depression and I have totally come to terms with each other. I’d rather be sad than a zombie. They don’t know what they’re doing. I’m probably going to be trapped here forever.”  
“Well, ‘forever’ I doubt. You know I’d break you out.” Hawke went on cheering Anders up, with a grandiose tale about them fighting against the forces of the oppression. It didn’t really seem healthy, but what was ‘healthy’ anyway? They loved each other. It wasn’t like Isabela, of all people, was going to judge them.

**Author's Note:**

> In case it's not clear, Anders has dissociative identity disorder with a heaping helping of depression.   
> I'm not personally knowledgeable of either of those things so sorry if I offend.


End file.
